As I so brilliantly pointed out recently, Hollywood has slowly been destroying the awesomeness of vampire movies, with films like Dracula 2000, Queen of the Damned and Twilight mangling once terrifying characters. Perhaps one of the worst offenders of all-time was 2004’s Van Helsing, directed by the poop-smearing Stephen Sommers. Universal Pictures is moving forward with a new Van Helsing project, but this time it is thankfully being produced and written by Guillermo del Toro.

Having already directed the outstanding Cronos and decent enough Blade II, del Toro has his finger on the pulse (*bowtie spins*) of vampire action and his Van Helsing project is being referred to as an “action horror story.” It is uncertain if del Toro will also direct this adaptation, but compared to Sommers’ effort he could film two hours of this guy describing the plot of Once Bitten and he’d clean house at the Academy Awards.

The bad news is this: Universal Pictures is developing another Van Helsing movie. However, it’s not a remake. It’s simply based upon the same fictional vampire hunter character from Bram Stoker’s Dracula, a great character who was, by all accounts, given an unfair shake in Stephen Sommers’ awful 2004 Van Helsing movie.

Del Toro, with Chuck Hogan, penned the vampire novel “The Strain” as the first in a trilogy and it was released last year to strong reviews. The story is similar in nature to “Bram Stoker’s Dracula,” in that it features a vampire hunter as the central character, much like Van Helsing. What it doesn’t feature is Dracula harvesting big booger sacks full of his babies, birthed by his obnoxious, screaming brides. Nor does it feature a craptastic Wolfman and sissy Frankenstein. I guess what I’m trying to say is it isn’t complete garbage like Sommers’ Van Helsing.

Of course, del Toro’s focus on this film means that The Hobbit is completely dead since MGM Studios is broke, causing del Toro to walk. But don’t worry, Sommers still has a second GI Joe and six other projects on the way, so yeah, life is fair.

I had originally wrote that as “XMen spreadsheets”, and almost left it that way.

06.11.10 at 1:44 pm

Lester Hayes Mayes

Does this mean the Van Helsing kids meal toys will be available at Del Taco?

06.11.10 at 1:45 pm

GlennBeckHasAIDS

So I guess we’re the only losers that are stuck here on Filmdrunk instead of getting wasted during South Africa v. Mexico

06.11.10 at 1:49 pm

GlennBeckHasAIDS

Perhaps one of the worst offenders of all-time was 2004’s Van Helsing

Not as offensive as 2010’s Van Der Sloot

06.11.10 at 1:49 pm

Fek'lhr

DUCK YOU GLENN BECK!!!

06.11.10 at 1:54 pm

GlennBeckHasAIDS

SUCK YOU DUCKER!!!

(Kudos Quaaludes if you get the reference)

06.11.10 at 2:05 pm

Patty Boots

I’m all for this. Del Toro could easily take the same concept as the first movie and make it awesome.

The only good thing about Sommers’ version was Hugh Jackman with no shirt.

06.11.10 at 2:09 pm

Donkey Hodey

It’s simply based upon the same fictional vampire hunter character from Bram Stoker’s Dracula, a great character who was, by all accounts, given an unfair shake in Stephen Sommers’ awful 2004 Van Helsing movie.

You want a fair shake? He’s a guy who was raised by the Catholic Church who gets poke-happy whenever a predator with an eager mouth gets near him.